September 29, 2015

What makes the system work?

I’ve been going to the same dental surgery here in Cambridge, England for nine years. During that time, I have been re-cycled to six different dentists working in the office. Several of the dentists have been quite good. Nonetheless, it has been a de-personalizing experience. It makes me feel like a mechanical mouth with teeth that need adjusting occasionally. The situation is similar with the doctor whom I have been seeing for the last nine years. His appointments are scheduled to last seven minutes. This is not his fault. It’s what is considered efficient management, and although he has never rushed me out of his office before covering the essentials for whatever reason I might be there, he knows, to this day, almost nothing about me as a person. I saw something similar beginning to happen in the university where I was teaching in the States. Students were too often becoming numbers – not individuals.

Britons are quite rightly proud of their health service which provides medical help without charge to the individual when they need it – whether they are rich or poor or belong to any other category of the dispossessed. It was set up by a Labour government after WWII when the country saw families of men and women who had sacrificed their lives for their country unable to get even the simplest medical help when they needed it.

That sense of fairness is deep in this country, and I admire it profoundly. By and large, there is a sense that, regardless of cost, people should not starve, children should have an education, families should not be forced to live on the street. There is a national commitment to what one might call a “safety net,” and a recognition that, whether it be bad luck, immaturity, poor judgement, or even sheer self-interest gone array, all of us at some point in our lives need a helping hand.

But the history of the last 100 years demonstrates that there are downsides to systems intended to serve all the people equally.

Two of the most widely recognized are corruption by those in positions of power and authority who, instead of serving others, are using the funds intended for this laudable purpose to enrich themselves. The second problem is that there are inevitably people who decide to rip off the system by receiving benefits instead of working, even when jobs are available and they are able to work.

But there is another downside to thinking that any system can create a just and fair society by itself. It doesn’t matter what that system is – whether it is religious or not, whether it is democratic or not, whether it was designed in the first place to support a generous and loving society.

A system that works must be operated by individuals who care about the people they serve. If people running the system care more about their careers than they care about the people they are serving, the system breaks down. If teachers work primarily for a salary and not first because they care about Jerry or Susan sitting in front of them, if doctors treat patients because they care more about their promotions than because they care about that person with a medical need, if social workers care less about the individual they are caring for than they care about getting paid, the system doesn’t work. If workers unions fight only for the material benefits of their members without concern for the individuals whom they are meant to be serving, the system cannot achieve its end. Or if, in the name of efficiency, the system squeezes out the individual and reduces him or her to merely a symptom, a number, an object, the system is broken.

The system needs people who care as much for the people they are intended to serve as they care for themselves and their own careers, and who are given sufficient leeway to express that care. The system needs them from top to bottom.

As an adolescent, I thought I was smart enough to implement a system that could transform human suffering. I thought I would be a Very Important Person, someone who was recognized as having made a great contribution to mankind.

But even if I’d been a great deal smarter than I am, I could not have done it. Because systems need individuals who care, who love the people they are serving. No system, no organization, no religion or system of government, even ones set up “for the people by the people” can ever work without each of us. We might feel like small little cogs in a system that hardly matter, that can’t really make a difference.

But it’s not the system that holds your hand when you are frightened. It’s not the system that gives you a smile when you are feeling lonely or depressed. It’s not the system that gives you that special encouragement you need to learn how to read when you are stumbling. It’s a single person who knows you, who cares about you as a unique person, for yourself.

And there’s no replacement for that. There isn’t any substitute in any system in the world. A system that is not filled with people who care cannot work.

Thank you most especially for your comment on this post. I write them as a sort of thinking-out-loud for myself, but occasionally worry that readers might find them no more than boring self-obsessions. So I particularly appreciate feedback from someone whose values I respect (especially when it’s positive!) Seriously, thank you again.

Can’t argue with that.
Infuriatingly the management of such systems seem to be forever moving towards numbers rather than names. My pet hate is “databases” where people are not people but representatives of various categories. Drives me nuts. In my work I am asked to reduce people to numbers and codes. The numbers and codes are profoundly meaningless (in that one, when one has finally caved in ethically, fills in the databases so that they *look* as if they might be valid and based on some kind of reality- because the type of reality that might generate the stats for the database is so far from actual reality that it is never going to happen, but they still need the stats…). Makes me want to scream “THE EMPEROR IS NAKED”….!
Sorry… rant going off the point.
Loved your post.

Special thank you for your comment. As I said to Raghu in response to his comment, I sometimes fear my “thinking out loud” posts sound like boring self-obsession. So I appreciate your sharing your own angst over the issue. Believe me, I understand. What I used to think of small acts of kindness have grown into the giants of value for me.

And, the system seems to set the mindset of those who work in it. You become its creature. Very hard to buck that and be an individual with values that the system may give lip service to but frustrates at every turn.

Oh, I agree. “The system” is incredibly influential in forming the individuals within it. Not always for the worst, actually. I didn’t think of that when I was writing the post.

But when I was writing the post, I was reflecting on the fact that for too long I thought that the system was the whole answer, that getting the system right would make everything right – eliminate injustice, unfairness, unnecessary suffering, etc. I now realize the system can’t achieve anything without the individuals within it. It radically changes my view of the importance of the individual. I wish I had understood that earlier in my life. There is absolutely no substitute for what the individual does.

Right now Britain is dealing with Corbyn, the new leader of the Labour party. He’s a very hard left-wing very of Trump over there on the right. I find both equally terrifying.

This blog is to help me remember that there is inevitably another way of looking at things besides the one that seems obvious to me. I find that if I can't see another possibility myself, other people are usually able to help with amazingly little effort.

Your comments to disrupt my point of view are welcome.

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